US Green Party raises enough funds for Wisconsin recount

The former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has raised the necessary $1.1 million to request a vote recount in Wisconsin, her campaign announced Thursday.

The Midwestern state was a key battleground in the November 8 election, helping propel the Republican President-elect Donald Trump past his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton to a victory that shocked the nation.

“Raising money to pay for the first round so quickly is a miraculous feat and a tribute to the power of grassroots organizing.”

The recount demands could reignite concern over the legitimacy of the vote, which followed a bitter presidential campaign that included persistent charges of foreign hacking and rigging.

Stein’s campaign has cited unspecified “anomalies” in the election as grounds to request a recount in Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania and Michigan, also swing states.

“The unexpected results of the election and reported anomalies need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified,” Stein said on her website. “We deserve elections we can trust.”

Wisconsin swung Republican for the time since voters there helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Trump also won by a slim margin in Pennsylvania, where a recount filing fee costs $500,000, due on November 28.

The filing fee in Michigan — where Trump has a razor-thin lead in unofficial results so far — is $600,000 due by November 30.

Stein’s campaign has currently raised $2.7 million toward its $4.5 million goal. The campaign anticipates eventually needing $6 million to $7 million to cover attorney fees and statewide recount observation costs.

Clinton is more than two million votes ahead of Trump in the popular vote count.

Her 1.5 percentage point lead in the popular vote makes no difference to the outcome of the election, however, because Trump won the deciding majority of indirect votes in the Electoral College. Clinton conceded on November 9.